Jaipur on high alert as Zika virus hits Rajasthan capital

Thursday, October 11, 2018

To Jaipur, the popular tourist destination, India has sent experts to try to control an outbreak of the zika virus with a closer look on pregnant women.

 
In the city, twenty-two people have been tested positive, the health ministry stated. There is no vaccine to the virus which can cause extensive birth defects in unborn children.

 
The National Health Mission, a government set up body has been created to monitor pregnant women in the area and to improve healthcare across the country as well.

 
“The situation continues to be monitored regularly,” the ministry said in a statement late on Monday.

 
The Toronto-based International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers stated that it was suggesting pregnant travelers to reschedule trips to the area, part of India’s tourist “golden triangle” of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal.

 
First exposed in 1947, the zika virus reached its epidemic proportions in Brazil in 2015, when numerous babies were born with microcephaly, a brain defect impacting speech and motor function.

 
In India, it is the third such outbreak, with the first in Ahmedabad in January 2017 and the second in Tamil Nadu in July last year. Both outbreaks were “successfully contained”, the government said.

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